Weight Loss Blog

Vegan Nutrition

A vegan is one who refrains from eating all animal products, this means no meat, fish, poultry, dairy or eggs.

Many people turn to being a vegan for three main reasons:
ethical, environmental concerns and health benefits.

Ethical - Many vegans feel that it is wrong to unnecessarily kill and consume animals. They also point out that, in Western societies today, the animal product industries are not only cruel, but wasteful and totally needless. People don't really need to eat animal products to live, and many vegans feel that we should be caretakers, rather than tyrants, over the rest of the world's creatures.

Environmental Concerns - Animal product industries have been extreemly wasteful of the worlds limited resources.
Many vegans are very concerned about the lack of conservation and preservation inherent in the production of animal foods and goods. They believe that, as intelligent citizens of the planet, to forego animal products is their responsibility.

Health Benefits - Numerous health benefits are enjoyed by vegans, including significantly lower incidences of strokes, heart disease, osteoporosis, most forms of cancer, diabetes, hypoglycemia, constipation, hemorrhoids, diverticulosis, o besity, and asthma - all of which are major illnesses found in affluent societies.

Vegan Protein Sources

Plant foods contain the very same eight amino acids as animal foods do, only in differing amounts. As long as you are getting enough calories from a healthy diet, plant foods can give you all the amino acids you need, by themselves or in combination with one another.

Here is a list of foods that contain all of the essential amino acids, meaning they complete proteins:

Grains - Brown rice, oats (cereals - oatmeal, granola, etc.) millet, corn, barley, bulghur, wheat (including whole wheat bread, pastas, cereals, flour, etc.)

Legumes - Green peas, lentils, chick peas, alfalfa sprouts, mung beans, and beans of all kinds (kidney, lima, aduki, navy beans, soy beans and products made from them; e.g., tofu, textured vegetable protein granules [Textured Soy Protein], tempeh, soy milks), peanuts, etc.

Greens - Broccoli, collards, spinach, etc.

Nuts and Seeds - Almonds, cashews, walnuts, filberts, pistachios, pecans, macadamias and nut butters made from these. Sunflower seeds, sesame seeds (including tahini butter made from ground sesame seeds), pumpkin seeds, etc.

Combining protein foods increases the protein absorption by about 30%, and thus variety is always the best strategy.

Bellow are classic vegan high protein combinations.
These combinations are meant to replace meat and dairy products. Two ample helpings of any of the following combinations average 15 to 35 grams of high quality protein.

Corn Tacos with Pinto Beans
Oat Bran Muffins with Soymilk
Brown Rice with Green Peas and Tofu
Tempeh Burgers on Whole Wheat Bun
Whole Grain Bread with Peanut Butter and Jelly Tofu Yogurt with Walnuts Tofu Cutlets with Green Beans Almondine Sunflower Pate & Sprouts on Pita Meatless (textured soy protein) Loaf with Tahini Dressing Noodles with Sesame Seeds Oatmeal with Sunflower Seeds Brown Rice with Almonds & Cashews Avacdo, Sprouts & Almond Butter on Whole Wheat Bread Corn or Wheat Flakes w/ Chopped Almonds & Filberts Chickpea Hummus (made w/Sesame Seed Butter) on Pita

as a special feature, you can listen to my Harvey Diamond Interview (1.5 hours in length) where Harvey talks about vegetarianism, natural health, dairy products and his new book about the lymph system called Living Without Pain.

Tags: vegetarian nutrition, vegan, vegan nutrition, natural weight loss, natural health

Labels: nutrition, vegan, vegetarian

Vegan Nutrition
was posted by Rob @ 3/28/2007 10:56:00 AM | Discuss this post or any other in my Weight Loss Forum

Receive my Blog updates via email as soon as I post!